German-American Discourse on Politics and Culture

September 22, 2009

kreuz.net and "Volksverhetzung"

In German criminal law, Volksverhetzung (literally "agitation of the populace") is a punishable offense under Section 130 of the Strafgesetzbuch
(Germany's criminal code) and can lead to up to five years
imprisonment. Volksverhetzung is punishable in Germany even if
committed abroad and even if committed by non-German citizens. The law bans the incitement of hatred against a segment of the population.

There is perhaps no better example of Volksverhetzung in the German blogosphere than the hate site kreuz.net. The allegedly "Catholic" news Web site (the Roman Catholic Church in Germany has condemned it) routinely engages in Holocaust denial, hatred against Jews, and virulent homophobia - all illegal under German law as Volksverhetzung.

How do the anonymous German operators get away with flagrantly breaking the law? By cleverly hiding behind the freedom of speech protections in the US constitution. As I wrote about earlier, the owners/operators have set up the site in the US. An American company (Global Net Access in Atlanta) hosts the site. But it is still unclear to me that merely hosting in the US protects the operators of the site, since the content is in German and is written for consumption in Germany.

An amendment to the German Criminal Code in 2000 (BGB 1 StR 184/00) would seem to deal precisely with situations such as kreuz.net: